Your View: Numbers don't add up on 'class warfare'

In his recent letter to The Standard-Times ("Your View: If Obama really cred about fairness ...", Jan. 16), Robert Pickup Jr. bemoaned President Obama's "class warfare rhetoric ... preached to his low-information constituency." However, an examination of the facts demonstrates that it is Mr. Pickup whose information is faulty and deficient.

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By Sandy Pliskin

southcoasttoday.com

By Sandy Pliskin

Posted Jan. 18, 2013 at 12:01 AM

By Sandy Pliskin

Posted Jan. 18, 2013 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

In his recent letter to The Standard-Times ("Your View: If Obama really cred about fairness ...", Jan. 16), Robert Pickup Jr. bemoaned President Obama's "class warfare rhetoric ... preached to his low-information constituency." However, an examination of the facts demonstrates that it is Mr. Pickup whose information is faulty and deficient.

Mr. Pickup claims that only the rich are being asked to make a "shared sacrifice" to solve our current financial crises. He implies that the only sacrifices currently being made are raises in the top tax rate for those with high incomes (an increase only on the portion of their incomes that exceeds $400,000 per year, by the way). He notes that those of us in the lower tax brackets work fewer hours, have lower incomes and have greater need of government services to meet subsistence needs.

Well, duh! Has Mr. Pickup looked for a job lately? According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, at the end of November 2012, there were approximately 12 million unemployed people, actively looking for work, and 3.7 million job openings. If Mr. Pickup thinks that the anxiety and indignity of unemployment does not involve sacrifice, I invite him to walk a mile in the shoes of those who are unemployed or underemployed (as I am).

Mr. Pickup asserts that the current system is already unfairly weighted against the rich because "the top 10 percent of income earners pay more than 50 percent of all income taxes". Lest I be part of the "low-information constituency," I did some research. According to "The State of Working America," 12th edition, in 2010 the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans (those who "pay more than 50 percent of all income taxes") took home about 52 percent of all income. That hardly seems disproportionate, and if we're supposed to have a graduated income tax that distributes the tax burden to those who can most afford it, we're not there yet!

But stay with me here. It's not the top 10 percent who are at issue, anyway. It is only the top 1 percent or so who are being asked to make new "sacrifices" (by paying the income tax rate that was in effect a dozen years ago). And our real federal tax burden is about much more than income taxes — think about payroll taxes, excise taxes, etc.

Pat Garofalo at Think Progress reports, "Once all taxes are taken into account, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the richest 1 percent of Americans pay about 28 percent of total federal taxes, which is right in line with their 25 percent share of total income. And therein lies the real story: The richest 1 percent of Americans pay such a large share of federal income taxes because they make such a large share of the overall income."